Sleep and Weight Loss

When you are on the road to a healthier lifestyle you become very conscious of the food/drink you are consuming and how active you are, for example how far and often you walk or exercise. But have you ever considered that sleep is one of the most effective things we can do to improve our health and well-being, even before diet and exercise?

What happens if I don’t get enough sleep?

Routinely sleeping less than six or seven hours a night has been linked to numerous health conditions, including but not limited to Alzheimer’s, anxiety and depression, strokes and chronic pain. It has also been linked to causing damage to every physiological system of the body, leading to cancer, diabetes, heart attacks, infertility and obesity. With the demands of modern living ever increasing, sleep has taken a backseat and more hours in the day are spent being productive. However what we don’t realise is that lack of sleep actually makes us increasingly unproductive, as individuals and within our own bodies.

Science behind how poor sleep affect eating habits?

Sleep is like nutrition for the brain; most people need between seven to nine hours sleep each night. Insufficient sleep impacts your hunger and fullness hormones, ghrelin and leptin. Ghrelin is the hormone that sends signals to your brain that it is time to eat. When you have had insufficient sleep your body generates more ghrelin, consequently indicating to your brain that you need to eat. The opposite of ghrelin is leptin, in that it cues your brain to stop eating. Lack of sleep causes leptin levels within the body to plummet, signalling your brain to eat more food or to continue eating when you should have stopped. When you combine these two factors it is understandable that people who haven’t had sufficient sleep tend to overeat and make bad choices when it comes to food.

But that’s not the only effect having a poor night’s sleep can have on your body. When you haven’t had enough sleep your cortisol level will spike; this stress hormone signals your body to conserve energy to fuel your waking hours. This essentially means that your body is more likely to store fat as opposed to burning it. Researchers found that when dieters reduced their sleep over a two week period the amount of weight they lost from actual fat dropped by 55 percent, despite the number of calories consumed remaining the same.

Finally, the amount of sleep you manage to get can also have a negative impact on your body’s ability to process insulin. Insulin is a hormone that is required to change sugar/starches and other foods into energy, however with poor sleep insulin sensitivity can drop by more than 30 percent. If your body doesn’t respond properly to insulin then it has trouble processing fats from your bloodstream and consequently stores them as fat. So sleeping more won’t make you lose weight, but not getting enough sleep will certainly hamper your metabolism and lead to weight gain.

Food cravings when you’re tired

If you’ve had a bad night’s sleep you will notice the next day you seem to have a lust for quick fixes of sugar or carbs. You’re not alone, this is completely normal and it is a result of your brain’s reward centre looking for something that feels good. So while you may be able to refrain from giving into food cravings when you’re well rested, your sleep deprived brain will have trouble preventing you from giving in when you’re tired.

Your brain also operates differently when it’s tired, it dulls the activity in the brain’s frontal lobe which focuses on decision making and impulse control. This means you don’t have the mental clarity to make good decisions, including good decisions about what you should and shouldn’t be eating (when you’re very tired a large milky coffee with a sugar or two may seem like a great idea to help wake you up but the calories certainly aren’t a good idea).

Why we should get at least seven to nine hours sleep each night

Aside from what we have outlined above about how sleep can lead to weight gain or poor food/drink choices when we’re tired, the benefits of sleep are vast. Getting enough sleep can help to protect your mental health, physical health, quality of life and overall safety. Sleep not only makes you feel better but adequate sleep is a key part of a healthy lifestyle, as during your sleeping hours your body is working to support healthy brain function and physical health.